Well, that was 60+ bands over the course of 5 or 6 days; slightly less than last year, I think, but a fantastic time nonetheless. There were many more bands that I wanted to see, but there were conflicts. I think I didn't organize my schedule as well this year as last. Next time I need to include band descriptions in my iCal to make it easier to decide between A and B. Sadly, the scheduler on the SXSW site is still shit, so I built my calendar by screen-scraping their HTML, cross-referencing that against every high-rated song in my iTunes, and building an ICS of the intersection (after having rated the 1200-ish songs in the torrent.) Next time, I need to include more info, including details like, "this band is playing again tomorrow."

I've posted photos of all the bands I enjoyed (not all the bands I saw) just so that I can remember them all, and know what to investigate later. (So if you were wondering why I keep spamming you with crappy cellphone pictures, it's not all about you, man!)

As last year, the Dart Music House and the British Music Embassy were pretty much a sure thing: we saw about half of the bands at Dart, and a whole bunch of the bands at BME, with much success.

BME is an actual Government-funded operation (the very idea!) but I'm more impressed with Dart, which is a non-profit whose mission is to bring bands from around the world to play in Austin for free. Dave Dart has apparently combined the skills of music discovery and grant writing. It's a great hack!

We stayed at the W, which is very pretty, and has a friendly staff, but their architect was such a pinhead that I don't think I'll stay here again. First of all, the shower -- the Performance Shower. The bathroom has no door, and you have to walk past the unfrosted-glass-front shower to get from the bedroom to the hall. Maybe that would be cute in a single, but this is in a room with two queen beds. Modesty is contraindicated here. Also, no drawers anywhere in the room, so don't unpack! And the pretty but entirely un-functional bathroom sink/shelf doesn't go all the way to the wall, ensuring that half of three people's worth of toiletries end up on the floor.

First World Problems, I know, but at the rates we were paying, i expect better. At least it was better than the Intercontinental (ugh).

I shall be composing a mixtape of my SXSW selections some time in the next few weeks.

You said:
"so I built my calendar by screen-scraping their HTML, cross-referencing that against every high-rated song in my iTunes, and building an ICS of the intersection (after having rated the 1200-ish songs in the torrent.) "